Deep focus

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A scene from William Wyler's film The Best Years of Our Lives exemplifies deep focus. Note the in-focus figure in the phone booth in the background — best seen in the enlarged view of the image.

Deep focus is a photographic and cinematographic technique incorporating a large depth-of-field. Depth-of-field is the front-to-back range of focus in an image — that is, how much of it appears sharp and clear. Consequently, in deep focus the foreground, middle-ground and background are all in focus. This can be achieved through knowledgeable application of the hyperfocal distance of the camera lens being used.

The opposite of deep focus is shallow focus, in which only one plane of the image is in focus.

In the cinema, Orson Welles and his cinematographer Gregg Toland were the two individuals most responsible for popularizing deep focus.^[1] Their film Citizen Kane (1941) is a veritable textbook of possible uses of the technique.

[edit] Notable uses of deep focus

A scene from Jean Renoir's film The Rules of the Game exemplifies shallow focus. Note the out-of-focus figure in the background — best seen in the enlarged view of the image.

The following films and television programs contain notable examples of deep-focus photography:

[edit] Black and White

• Twilight of a Woman's Soul (1913)^[2]
• Foolish Wives (1922)
• Nosferatu (1922)
• Greed (1924)
• Downhill (1927)
• Working Girls (1931)
• Waltzes from Vienna (1934)
• Mad Love (1935)
• Dead End (1937)
• Grand Illusion (1937)
• The Rules of the Game (1939)
• The Long Voyage Home (1940)
• Rebecca (1940)
• Citizen Kane (1941)
• The Little Foxes (1941)
• The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
• The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
• Ugetsu (1953)
• Sansho the Bailiff (1954)
• Seven Samurai (1954)
• Mr. Arkadin (1955)
• Ashes and Diamonds (1958)
• L'avventura (1960)
• The Trial (1962)
• The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
• Birdman of Alcatraz (1962)
• Seven Days in May (1964)
• The Train (1964)
• Chimes at Midnight (1966)
• Faces (1968)
• The Last Picture Show (1971)
• Paper Moon (1974)

[edit] Color

• The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
• For a Few Dollars More (1965)
• The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
• The Offence (1972)
• Rumble Fish (1983)
• 52 Pick-Up (1986)
• Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
• Peter Pan (2003)
• The New World (2005)
• Six Feet Under (2001-2005)
• The Black Dahlia (2006)
• The Dark Knight (2008)

[edit] See also

• Depth of focus

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

• Bordwell, David; Kristin Thompson (2003). Film Art: An Introduction, Seventh edition, New York: McGraw-Hill.